IETF rejects wiretapping plan

Jane Wakefield ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 11 Nov 1999 13:13 GMT

The Internet Engineering Taskforce (IETF) has voted overwhelmingly to reject plans for a global standard for snooping on Net telephone calls Thursday.

The IETF was considering designing a protocol to allow wiretapping of telephone calls made over the Internet. Internet telephony is touted as a rival for standard voice calls in the next three to five years as DSL technologies are widely adopted. Civil liberties groups have universally slammed the plan, claiming the IETF does not have the jurisdiction to work on such a standard and questioning the need for further snooping on Net activities.

Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) is delighted by the news. "Only 25 out of 500 members supported the idea, showing the overwhelming sentiment was that the IETF was not the appropriate body to devise tapping systems for the Net," he said.